Kukla's Korner Hockey

There are also serious security threats to the Games. In Guatemala, Putin pledged the Sochi Olympics would be “safe, enjoyable and memorable.” But many, even inside government, are no longer sure of that. Sochi is near the predominantly Muslim Russian republics of Chechnya and Dagestan, and rebel groups such as Caucasus Emirate continue to fight to create an Islamic caliphate. Last month Alexander Bortnikov, the chief of Russia’s federal security bureau, said he was aware of credible Islamist terrorist threats to attack the Sochi Games.

To add to the pressure, there are also growing concerns about the environmental impact of the construction, both on Olympic venues and an ambitious combined road/rail connector being built between Adler, a southern suburb of Sochi, and the mountain venues at Krasnaya Polyana.

In January the United Nations Environment Programme noted that Russian promises to strengthen environmental protections, enlarge the nearby Sochi National Park and set up new protected areas for sensitive wetlands were not being carried out.

Comments

Chechnya and Dagestan are the tips of the “powder keg” iceberg. Sochi’s a few dozen miles from Georgia, South Ossieta, a few hundred miles from Azerbaijan, Armenai, Turkey, and Iran, and there are at least a dozen distinct ethnic groups who don’t like each other very much and/or are warring in the southern Caucasus mountains…The NHL has some very legitimate security concerns regarding the 2014 Olympics, and they should.

Posted by
detroitdan1982
from St. John's, NL on 06/14/10 at 01:55 PM ET

Yeah, I gotta say, I know quite a bit can change in a few years, but if I were an NHL player, I wouldn’t be on board with Sochi.

Considering the animosity between the cultures in the region and the Russian government, and considering how badly Russia wants to succeed in the ice hockey portion of the Sochi Olympics… it seems too obvious that this would be a prime terrorist target.